


An Empty Room

by mydogwatson



Series: One Fixed Point: 2020 Advent Stories [2]
Category: Sherlock TV
Genre: Baker Street, M/M, Pining, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27840988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: A homecoming.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson
Series: One Fixed Point: 2020 Advent Stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035588
Comments: 25
Kudos: 68





	An Empty Room

**Author's Note:**

> 2 December and still on schedule! And I do promise that things get less tragic after this one. The prompt here was ‘Baby, please come home.’ This is a very loose take on that. Also, I forgot to put the prompt on yesterday’s story; it was Exhausted.
> 
> Thanks for all the nice comments on the first story and I hope you will enjoy this one as well.

But nothing makes a room feel emptier than wanting someone in it.  
-Quinn, C.

Everyone to whom I spoke maintained that it was a mistake.

Admittedly, ‘everyone’ constituted a very small group, because I had let society drift away over time. The events at Reichenbach Falls had embittered me, making the chittering of ordinary people nothing but an irritant, as if glass paper were being dragged along my skin. It was, shamefully, almost a relief when Mary was struck ill, because it served as the perfect excuse not to go out. People understood. My already small life was then lived primarily between the sick room, where I tried my best to keep up the spirits of a dying woman, and the parlour, where I drank while mourning a dead man. My practice stagnated, left as it was in the care of an accommodating acquaintance who practiced nearby.

After Mary’ s passing, people expected me to grieve and I did. A measure of my sadness was, indeed, for my late wife, because we had been good friends. Even before the actual wedding, she and I had both realised that between the two of us, friendship was what would sustain the marriage. Mary wanted the freedom that being wed would grant her and as for me...I wanted the world to see me as a respectable physician, respectable husband, respectable man.

Albeit one who had once been the boon companion of a madman, charging around the dark and dangerous streets of London, thwarting the villains and setting things right in Victoria’s capital. Albeit one with dark secrets residing in his heart. At one point in time, I had a thriving surgery, a modest yet comfortable residence in a good neighbourhood, a pretty and intelligent wife; in short, everything a man could want.

And yet I would have thrown it all over in the blink of an eye to have Holmes back. It was Holmes I still grieved, would forever grieve. And once Mary was gone, there was no one left in the world who understood the actual source of my pain. My solitude was complete.

Given my cloistered existence, it was only the few people with whom I had sporadic contact who warned me that moving back to Baker Street was a mistake.

Why, they wanted to know, would I leave my lovely home, the place in which I had been so happy with my sweet wife, to resume living in a bachelor’s quarters?

I did not explain to them.

There was at least one person who greeted my return to 221B with a genuine smile and a cheery word. Mrs Hudson had always been a most excellent landlady, who tolerated Holmes’s eccentricities [and possibly my own] with a stalwart British attitude. I was a bit surprised to discover that she had not found a new tenant for the rooms, but then she explained that Mr Mycroft Holmes had continued to pay the rate. She did not know why he would do such a thing and nor did I, but it would be worth thinking about when I had a moment.

It was within a few days following my visit with Mrs Hudson that I had turned the house over to an agent, donated Mary’s clothing and such to a worthy charity, and collected my own belongings for transfer to Baker Street. Whilst I could feel no joy on the occasion [joy, for me, perished in the cold Swiss waters] I did have a sense of homecoming. 

Mrs Hudson and I celebrated the occasion with tea and lemon cake, while she caught me up on all the gossip of the neighborhood.

Time had gotten away from me so much that it was something of a surprise when Mrs Hudson exclaimed how glad she was that I was in place for Christmas and promised a goose for my dinner the next day. And a special pudding.

I pretended enthusiasm and she bustled off.

It had been suggested that instead of returning to my old quarters, I might move into the larger bedroom which Holmes had occupied. I declined the suggestion, probably more forcefully than was courteous, so the young lads I had employed to move my various trunks deposited everything up the small flight of stairs. Mrs Hudson had previously cleaned and put fresh linen on the bed, so all was ready for me.

The only question remaining was whether or not _I_ was ready.

It took me the afternoon to unpack and efficiently organise my belongings. An old campaigner never loses some skills.

Dinner was a hearty meat-and-ale pie which I ate sitting alone at the table. I assured Mrs Hudson that there was nothing else I needed for the evening and she was soon off for a holiday drink or two with her good friend Mrs Turner.

I lighted a few candles instead of using the lamps and poured myself a large whisky before taking my usual chair before the fire.

How many nights we had sat just here, fine whisky or sometimes port in hand, pipes ignited. Sometimes we talked and sometimes the only sound was the clinking of our glasses against the bottle as I topped up our drinks.

The room itself was just as it had been. A clutter of books and papers and the various odd items Holmes had used in his experiments. Mrs Hudson was really a most tolerant woman.

During Mary’s illness, I had read to her most evenings and Austen was a particular favourite. As I sat alone, listening to the muted sound of horses and carriages passing in the road, a quote from one of those books came to my mind. Something about thinking of the past only as it gave you pleasure. 

Perhaps one day my own history might give me some pleasure, but I feared such a time was far away still..

As I mused on that, a new sound intruded into my solitude, as below on Baker Street, a group of carolers began to sing.

_In the bleak midwinter  
Frosty wind made moan,  
Earth stood hard as iron,  
Water like stone.  
Snow had fallen,  
Snow on snow on snow._

The words floated up to me, like whispers to my soul. I stared at the empty chair opposite and wept.

Snow on snow on snow.

**

**Author's Note:**

> Must confess to a bit of author’s privilege. I had the scene all written before I discovered that the carol used, from a poem by Christina Rossetti, was not actually set to music until a decade or so after the time of the story. But I liked it, so...


End file.
